Animal snares are known which essentially includes a snare cable having a snare loop at one end, with the end of the cable at that end having a sliding connection of some type, triggering means for activating the trap and means for anchoring the trap to the ground. Thus, if the leg of the animal becomes entrapped within the snare and the animal tries to escape, the sliding connection of the snare loop end acts in the manner of a slipknot to tighten around the animal's leg as the animal tries to move away from the trap. One initial problem with snare traps of this type is that they essentially depend on the animal's own efforts of escape as a means of tightening the snare loop. Secondarily, once trapped, the snare becomes tightly constricted about the animal's leg causing extreme discomfort to the animal and may also result in injury to the animal. This latter point is particularly undesirable if the entrapped animal is an undesirable non-target animal which would be set free by the trapper. Therefore, such snares have been considered as inhumane and undesirable for trapping an animal.
Similar criticisms have been made with respect to other types of animal traps such as the spring jaw traps, which when used causes extreme suffering and injury to the animal as well as damage to the animal's pelt.
Recently, efforts have been made to overcome these undersirable characteristics. Canadian Patent 1,145,935 to Novak, for example, discloses a snare trap which has a shock-absorbing apparatus associated with the trap. U.S. Pat. No. 4,208,827 to Starkey discloses an adjustable animal snare-type trap which includes means for permitting the trap to be adjusted so as to exert only as much pressure as may be required to hold, without hurting, the animal desired by the trapper. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 4,250,653 to Davies utilizes telescoping members to close the snare upon manual actuation while allowing also for selectively of target species.
Although, as exemplified above, snare-traps have been designed which provide various means to allow for adjustment of the degree of pressure exerted by the loop on the animal or animal's leg, it would be desirable to provide a humans, snare type animal trap which includes means for automatically varying the tension of the loop within prescribed limits which is a direct result of the animals'own efforts of escape as a means for determining the tension of the snare loop. It is further desirable to provide a trap that is small and light weight thereby making the trap easy to transport and easy to conceal thereby improving trapping success rates.